Aidan Slingsby giCentre, Department of Computer Science, City, University of London |
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I am a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science as part of the giCentre Research Centre. I direct our MSc in Data Science programme and oversee our department's whole postgraduate offerings.
My research interests focus on the role of data visualisation in the analysis of data, particularly those that are spatial and temporal. My work involves creating, designing, applying and evaluating both static and interactive information visualisation for data exploration and analysis. I design and apply these techniques in a variety of application areas including insurance, population, human movement, animal movement and ecology. I use and combine techniques from cartography, GIS and information visualisation.
I have a background in Geography and GIS, holding a BSc (Hons) in Geology (Edinburgh), an MSc in GIS (Edinburgh) and a PhD in GIS (University College London).
Recent news
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October 2024: My paper "Zoomable Level-of-Detail ChartTables for Interpreting Probabilistic Model Outputs for Reactionary Train Delays" was presented at the IEEE VIS conference. You can read it here (4 pages) and see the talk here. This is joint work with Risk Solutions on our Rail Performance Modelling work. |
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October 2024: Mai presented her paper Visualising Lived Experience: Learning from a Master and Alternative Narrative Framing at the Beliv workshop at IEEE Vis for which I am a co-author. |
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October 2024: I am co-editor for a Special Issue of Computers and Graphics with Mai Elsehehaly and Kai Xu for the 42nd Computer Graphics & Visual Computing (CGVC) Conference. Deadline for submissions 19th January 2025. |
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September 2024: Maeve's paper LLM-Assisted Visual Analytics: Opportunities and Challenges won Best Paper at CGVC24. She also presented the poster From LitVis to Reasoning in Data Visualisation: A Research Plan. This work is based on her PhD which I co-supervise with Pranava and Radu. |
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September 2024: Laleh presented her paper Interplay of Visual Analytics and Topic Modeling in Gameplay Analysis at CGVC24. This work is based on her PhD which I co-supervise with Gennady Andreinko. |
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September 2024: Dany presented his poster Exploring the Evolution of Decarbonisation Scenarios with Gridded-glyphmaps Visualisations at CGVC24. This is based on his PhD which I co-supervise with Radu. |
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September 2024: I was Programme Chair for the 42nd Computer Graphics & Visual Computing (CGVC) Conference hosted by my institution (City St. George's, University of London) with Mai Elsehehaly as the conference Chair. We had an amazing programme and I thank all those that contributed. |
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September 2024: I attended the #VizTIG Symposium 2024. #VizTIG is an Allen Turing Institute Special Interest Group which was held at the Northern Visualization and Visual Analytics group at Newcastle University. I present my ChartTables work which I'm due to present at IEEE VIS next month. |
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May 2024: Dany presented a Short Paper at Gridded-glyphmaps for supporting Geographic Multicriteria Decision Analysis at EuroVis in Odense (Denmark). This is based on his PhD which I co-supervise with Radu. |
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October 2023: My paper "Gridded Glyphmaps for Supporting Spatial COVID-19 Modelling" was awarded "Best VIS Short Paper" at the IEEE VIS conference. You can read it here (4 pages), see a video summary here (30 seconds), see the talk here (7 minutes), and see/play with an Observable implementation here. |
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February 2023: Welcome Maeve Hutchinson who is doing a PhD in on the use of Natural Language in Information Visualisation. She supervised by Pranava Madhyastha, Radu Jianu and me. |
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October 2022: Welcome Dany Laksono who is doing a PhD in Visual Analytics on green energy with Advanced Infrastructures Technology Limited and is supervised by Radu Jianu and me. |
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February 2023: Welcome Laleh Moussavi who is doing a PhD on visual analytics for extracting and analysing complex behaviour in spatiotemporal data. She is supervised by Gennady Andrienko and me. |
See older news.
Current projects
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Making Visual Analytics an Integral Part of the Technological Infrastructure for Combating COVID-19: I will be working with Richard Reeve and Claire Harris at Glasgow University, designing and applying visual analytics to assist the construction of models and interpretation of the results. This project is an EPSRC-funded multi-university project led by Min Chen at Oxford University, that also involves Bangor University, City (University of London), the University of Edinburgh, the University of Glasgow, King's College London, Loughborough University, Middlesex University, the University of Nottingham, Swansea University and the University of Warwick and will be working with the Scottish COVID-19 Response Consortium. |
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The Rail Performance Model: I will be designing and implementing interactive visualisation to assist in constructing an agent-based model of train movements and to facilitate interpretation and comparison of the model results. The project is led by Risk Solutions has been successfully funded. This follows from the previous project, but involves more partners including Great Western Railway, Great Anglia and Network Rail. Whilst the previous project was a feasibility study, here we will implement a toolset to be used by the UK rail industry, including timetable design. We will be producing a number of case studies. |
Previous projects
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Agent based modelling and visualisation of the causes and consequences of knock-on delays: This project investigated the feasibility of combining agent-based modelling and highly interactive visualisation to help the railway industry understand reactionary (knock-on) delay and how to reduce it. It is feasible and a follow-up project was funded (se above). Project partners were Risk Solutions and Great Western Railway and it was funded by RSSB, the rail industry's research arm that funds applied research that is likely to improve the way the railway run. |
Teaching and supervision
I am PGT director for my department overseeing our MSc offerings. I am also Programme Director of our MSc in Data Science programme and am grateful to DataCamp for providing free accounts to our students.
I teach Principles of Data Science and Visual Analytics modules to MSc students. I supervise BSc, MSc and PhD projects. I'm open to supervising projects that relate to my research interests.
Current PhD students are Laleh Moussavi, Dany Laksono and Maeve Hutchinson.
Completed PhD students are Sarah Goodwin (2012-2015) and Rafael Henkin (2014-2018).
Examined PhD students are Susanne Bleisch (2011; City University London), Azira Ab Aziz (2015; Southampton), Andreas Hall (2016; Aalto), Vanessa MacLellan (2018; St Andrews) and Jessica Hepburn (2022; Newcastle).
Some examples and demos
Video demos on the giCentre Vimeo Channel
GlyphMaps: Population and COVID: "Glyphmaps" to support Claire Harris's (BIOSS) and Richard Reeve's (Glasgow University) COVID-modelling effort on the RAMP-VIS project (coordinated by Min Chen). More information (including a Java implementation) is here
birdGIS: Software for visually-exploring GPS data, originally designed for GPS-tracked birds.
London bike hire graphs: last 24 hours of usage compared to last week and for any day since mid-August
OAC maps: rectangular cartograms of UK demographics.
Place Survey: explore the Place Survey results for Leicestershire.
Responsive Legends for Aerial Photographs: demo of a map legend for an aerial photograph that is responsive to zoom/pan.
Tag map mashups: Mashups of point-based spatial data of British placenames
Exploring Design Decisions for Effective Information Visualization: tutorial with software.
Key publications
See full list.
Slingsby, A., Hyde, J. (2024). Zoomable Level-of-Detail ChartTables for Interpreting Probabilistic Model Outputs for Reactionary Train Delays. Short paper in: 2024 IEEE Visualization and Visual Analytics (VIS). IEEE VIS: Visualization & Visual Analytics, 13-18 Oct 2024, Florida US. [details | video]
Slingsby, A. , Reeve, R. & Harris, C. (2023). Gridded Glyphmaps for Supporting Spatial COVID-19 Modelling. Short paper in: 2023 IEEE Visualization and Visual Analytics (VIS). IEEE VIS: Visualization & Visual Analytics, 22-27 Oct 2023, Melbourne, Australia. doi: 10.1109/VIS54172.2023.00009. Best Short Paper. [details]
Morgades, P., Slingsby, A. & Moat, J. 2021. Assessing the Geographical Structure of Species Richness Data with Interactive Graphics. In: Workshop on Visualisation in Environmental Sciences (EnvirVis). . Geneva, Switzerland: The Eurographics Association. ISBN 978-3-03868-148-9 doi: 10.2312/envirvis.20211085 [details]
Slingsby, A. & van Loon, E. (2016). Exploratory Visual Analysis for Animal Movement Ecology. Computer Graphics Forum, 35(3). [details | DOI | software | video]
Turkay, C., Slingsby, A., Hauser, H., Wood, J. & Dykes, J. (2014). Attribute Signatures: Dynamic Visual Summaries for Analyzing Multivariate Geographical Data. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics [details]
Slingsby, A., Dykes, J., Wood, J. & Radburn, R. 2014. Designing an Exploratory Visual Interface to the Results of Citizen Surveys. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, doi: 10.1080/13658816.2014.920845 [details]
Slingsby, A., Beecham, R. and Wood, J. 2013. Visual Analysis of Social Networks in Space and Time using Smartphone Logs Pervasive and Mobile Computing 9 (6), pp848-864. [details]
Walker, R., Slingsby, A., Dykes, J., Xu, K., Wood, J., Nguyen, P., Stephens, D., Wong, W. and Zheng, Y. 2013. An Extensible Framework for Provenance in Human Terrain Visual Analytics Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics 19 (12), pp2139-2148. [details]
Slingsby, A., Dykes, J. and Wood, J. 2011. Exploring Uncertainty in Geodemographics with Interactive Graphics. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 17(12), pp2384-2391 [paper]
Dykes, J., Wood, J. and Slingsby, A. 2010 Rethinking Map Legends with Visualization. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics 16(6), pp890-899 [pdf | video] Honorable mention
Wood, J., Dykes, J., Slingsby, A. 2010. Visualization of Origins, Destinations and Flows with OD Maps, The Cartographic Journal 47 (2) pp117-129. DOI:10.1179/000870410X12658023467367 [pdf]
Slingsby, A., Wood, J. and Dykes, J. (2010) Treemap Cartography for showing Spatial and Temporal Traffic Patterns, Journal of Maps, v2010, 135-146. DOI: 10.4113/jom.2010.1071 [pdf | demo].
Slingsby, A., Dykes, J. and Wood, J. 2009. Configuring Hierarchical Layouts to Address Research Questions. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics 15 (6), Nov-Dec 2009, pp977-984 [pdf | video] Honorable mention
Wood, J, Dykes, J., Slingsby, A. and Clarke K. 2007. Interactive visual exploration of a large spatio-temporal data set: reflections on a geovisualization mashup. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics 13 (6), pp1176-1183, November/December 2007. [